


Modest Hideaway

by matrixrefugee



Category: Inception
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not every job is quite what Ariadne expects...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modest Hideaway

Ariadne wasn't sure quite what to expect when she and Arthur entered the subject's love nest. She realized she had supposed it would be some lush, exotic place, with heavy damask curtains in reds and golds at the windows, to cover them and keep out prying eyes; a divan with deep pillows like something out of the Arabian Nights; plush carpets that her feet sank into up to the ankle, scents of incense and a whiff of opium in the air, maybe mirrors on the ceiling in the bedroom.

She didn't expect to walk into a simple, comfortable apartment, furnished with worn but sturdy furniture like the kind she found in her aunt Hestia's house. The kitchen, with its clutter of gadgets and cookbooks, had a whiff of toast and fried eggs in the air.

"This is the right address, isn't it?" she asked, looking at Arthur. Her usually nattily dressed teammate was, for the moment, clad like her in the drab khaki jump suit of the cleaning company they were supposedly working for, the better to gain access to the love nest.

He set down the plastic work basket overflowing with squeegees and cleaning rags and spray bottles and took out a digital camera that he'd hidden."This is the address Fischer gave us," he said. "Not quite what you were expecting, is it? Romantic hideaways aren't always like the places you read about in romance novels."

She ran a hand over the green marble-pattern Formica counter top. "I'm not sure what I was expecting, except maybe something like a page from the Arabian Nights," she admitted, imagining someone chopping herbs for a chicken soup, rather than pouring out glasses of some anise-flavored liqueur. "It looks like my aunt's apartment."

"Not some decadent hideaway with voluptuous furnishings?" he asked, stepping into the dining nook and snapping shots of it. "The subject's mistress lives here part of the time, and she's probably not what a romance novelist would expect a Fortune 500 CEO to hole up with when he needs to get away from his business."

"What's she like?" she asked, following him into the dining nook.

"You'd have to ask Eames for the particulars, but let's say she's not likely to model for a photo shot inspired by Ingres's Le Grande Odalisque," he said, wryly as he headed into the bed-sitter. "She's the type of woman a man feels safe around, not some trophy lover."

"I guess it's like they say, love doesn't always make sense except to the person in love," she said, following him, getting a feel for the place.

The bedroom wasn't quite what she expected either: there was a wafer-thin flatscreen on the wall and a Blu-Ray player on the dresser beneath it, but the queen-size bed was covered with a tasteful flowered duvet and while the bed was made up for three, one pillow had a Hello Kitty pillowslip.

"They have a kid?" she asked.

"A daughter, hers from a previous relationship," Arthur said, snapping photos of the pictures on the walls: a sunlit Maxfield Parrish landscape and a James Thurber hound surrounded by cock-eyed daisies.

Ariadne sat on the bed and ran a hand over the spread. She got a mental image of the subject and his lover cuddling under the covers, or watching a Disney movie together with their little girl.

"It seems...intrusive, picking this place," she said at length.

"It's where the subject will feel the most willing to open up," he said, sitting down beside her on the bed to spool through the shots he'd taken. From his tone, she could tell that he didn't entirely approve of Fischer's choice of a setting, much less Cobb's approval of it.

"You'd rather not invade a family's privacy," she said. "You've thought about having a family?" she asked.

"In another life, I did," he admitted. "How Cobb balances this line of work and a family is beyond me. What about you?"

"I've been too busy with classes to think about dating, or settling down," she said, clasping one knee in her folded arms. "Mom wanted me to get my degree before I thought about kids."

He turned to her, the camera sinking into his lap. "But you've thought about it?"

She rolled one shoulder in a small shrug. "I have, but there hasn't been a whole lot of room for a relationship, not till now."

He smirks gently. "Looking for someone who'll build you that Arabian Nights love nest?" he asked, leaning closer.

She looked away modestly. "Maybe," she confessed.

He got up from the bed. "Let's get working: the neighbors will get suspicious if we're here for less than a few hours."

* * * *

A few days later, when they were supposed to be checking the design on the second level, she found that Arthur had set up that Arabian Nights corner she had talked about...


End file.
